Classic
by singsongsung
Summary: Rory. Marty. Rogan undertones. Her life is no longer that of a smalltown girl out in the real world.


**Classic**

**A/N:** I'm back! Long time no...write. Sorry it's been so long, decided to hate me and then I had history projects galore...anyway...this was fairly random, but I like it. It is NOT in any way related to my little series of Rogans. Enjoy, and review, please! I would love to get 20 reviews. Good or bad. Up for the challenge?

When she sees him she's filled with the temptation to run. _Classic Rory Gilmore_, she thinks to herself. She's annoyed at her own predictability, how all of her actions are so typical of her.

But for once, there's nowhere to run. It's a hallway and they're the only people in it. She can't duck into a doorway or hide behind someone, can't pretend she doesn't see him. Because she has a clear line of vision, and they're staring at each other.

Cautiously, she takes a few steps and joins him on the bench. "Hi."

"Hi."

"So…I heard."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I thought…that was pretty stupid of you." He's quiet, so she continues, "She really loves you."

"I heard about your grandfather. He okay?"

She blows out an exasperated breath. "He'll be okay. I'm just getting back from the hospital. He's had some heart problems for a while, and he just had a heart attack, but he's totally stable. Grandma told me to get some sleep. And stop changing the subject, Marty. I just want to know…why? Why'd you lie to her? Why was it so wrong that we'd met before?"

He sighs. "Rory."

Her frown deepens. "Seconds ago you were all sympathetic about my grandpa. Can't you gather up some of that sympathy and just answer my damn question?"

He stares at the floor. "I've been trying really hard to love Lucy, Rory, I have. She's sweet and wonderful and…she's great, but…" he sighs heavily. "No matter what I do, I can't make myself fall out of love with you."

"That's not fair," she says, almost tearfully. "Saying stuff like that to me- it's not fair, Marty."

"I'm trying to be honest with you, Rory. I thought you'd at least find that refreshing, considering who you're with."

Her temper, her classic Gilmore temper, flares immediately. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"God, Rory, you were always so blind. He's not good enough for you. How do you know that he's not cheating on you when he's away?"

She can't breathe. She's so completely shocked, so stung by his words.

"Rory?" He looks sad. "I'm sorry. That was way out of line."

Of course, she realizes, Marty doesn't know. Marty doesn't know about the wedding and the bridesmaids and the breakup and Jess and Logan's accident and her jealousy of Bobby. He didn't know that his words would hit home like they have.

And then, she leans over and kisses him. Why? Because she's Rory Gilmore. And throwing herself into painful, vicious cycles is what she does best. Classic Lorelai Gilmore, that's what it is, because she learned it from her mother. Without knowing it, Lorelai had taught her young daughter (inadvertently, of course), how easy it is to lose yourself in a cycle. But learning how hard it was to get out? Rory learned that one herself, because she was so clueless. Predictable Lorelai Leigh Gilmore. She learns lessons taught in buildings with pencils and books so well, but she was always slow when it came to life.

Dean? She asks herself, do you remember Dean? How he slipped in and out of your life for years? The pain he caused you, the pain you caused him. And Jess? Same basic concept. Really, he should be fairly fresh in her oblivious mind. What about Logan, he's a perfect example. How easy it was for him to fix her, break her, and fix her all over again. _You remember Logan, don't you, Rory? Your boyfriend?_

But right now she doesn't, because she's kissing Marty. When she pulls back, in desperate need of oxygen, she places her fingertips to her lips. And it's Tristan DuGrey, a kiss on a piano bench, all of it, all over again.

"What was that?" Marty's words are gentle; his arm is still around her shoulders. He was her friend first, and that's what will always make a difference.

So she cries. Because she's never been able to cry when everyone expects her to. She doesn't cry when something goes wrong, or when she gets hurt. She cries hours later, days later, weeks later, when everything comes tumbling down on her.

And because he's Marty, because he's her friend, because they watched _Duck Soup_ countless times together, he hugs her. He pulls her to him almost roughly, tucks her head under his chin, buries his face in her hair, and rubs her back soothingly. "It's okay, Rory," he says.

She needs some sleep. She told Logan to just let her take a walk around campus, calm down, and she'd meet him back at the apartment. It's been a long, scary day, and a hard week, a week full of wondering about how to make things right with Lucy again, a week full of Paris' crazy plans. She's tired. She thinks she needs her mother, but Lorelai has her own stuff to deal with. This is the one thing she hates about adulthood. When you're five and you need your mother, it's that simple. When you're twenty-two and you need your mother, you need to think about whether or not your mother might need you first.

She cries for a while: for her grandfather, for her mother, for Lucy and Marty, and for herself.

"Marty," she sighs after a while, "This is…it for me. Logan's…it. I'm done. I'm with him, and…I don't know, I can just feel it, but it's forever. I'm happy with him. You're like Luke, you know that?" she asks affectionately. "In Luke's mind, no one in the world is good enough for me." She looks him in the eye. "I'm not perfect, Marty. I'm not the angel everyone insists that I am. I'm human, and I'm broken. I'm no different than anyone else." She bites her lip. "I know that there's a temptation to put me on a pedestal. Maybe it's my eyes, huh? But I don't belong there. And Logan…Logan is one of the few people in the world who can recognize that I'm not pedestal-worthy."

"You're so perfect, Rory. You're smart and beautiful and witty…"

"Maybe I am. But I'm still not pedestal-worthy. I've made my fair share of mistakes, and I'll probably make more," she sighs. "But for now I am so happy, and I need you to…" Her eyes probe into his. "Let me go. Please."

He exhales slowly, and, out of habit, she begins to count. _One, two three…nine, ten, eleven…_ It reminds her of music class in elementary school, when she had decided that she wanted to play clarinet. She remembers her teacher saying, "Big breath in…and blow it out for a long as you can."

Marty gets to thirty-four, which is impressive. Rory's goal had always been thirty-two (four counts of eight) but she'd always barely made it to twenty-eight. She inhales deeply and blows out her own breath. _…sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, ninete- _she gasps for air again.

Marty looks at her, and it's obvious that he's concerned (for her health or for her sanity? She's not sure.). "Rory…are you okay?"

"I'm okay," she assures him, and she realizes what an weird word "okay" is, and how much it's used on a daily basis. "Who added the 'a' and the 'y' to ok?" she wonders aloud. "They aren't needed."

Marty squints at her, and now, she knows, he's concerned for her sanity.

"I'm ok," she says again, changing the spelling in her mind. "Really. It's just…" she shoots him a gentle smile. "It's been an insane week."

"Yeah?"

"Paris," she offers by way of explanation.

"Understandable."

They are stuck in limbo, an awkward pause.

"You should get home," he says finally, lovingly. She can hear it in his voice, blind, unadulterated affection. She knows for a fact that if she said "I want you" to him, he would let her take him. She knows that he would be the perfect boyfriend to her, all rose petals on the bed when she gets home, sweet kisses before she falls asleep, angelic in front of her grandparents, fun-loving in front of her mother. She knows that all of her friends and family (besides Richard and Emily, of course) would breathe a deep sigh of relief if she announced, "It's over with Logan, I'm dating naked-guy."

It's almost as though a movie entitled _The Alternate Life of Lorelai Leigh Gilmore_ is playing in her mind. She sees a small, quiet café where he gets down on one knee and asks her to be his forever. A quiet wedding in a small church, tears gleaming in her mother's eyes. She sees herself ten years in the future with him, two kids running around; a busy life, but always time for coffee breaks. She sees fights, but they're not like the ones she has with Logan: she and Marty would fight over battery brands and TV channels or how much money she spends on coffee. Yeah, she can see it.

But at the same time, it's not what she wants. With Logan, there are downfalls. There is jealously and there is pain, sometimes something close to hatred that, upon closer inspection, seems a lot like love. But in Logan lies everything she wants. That life that she wholeheartedly rejected for so many years because of her mother's pride, she finds herself attracted to it in him. She loves the way he looks at her sometimes, eyes full of something unadulterated and fiercely emotional, some crazy blend of love and lust. She loves that she can be a different person around him. There's Rory Gilmore: coffee addict, junk food lover, ideal daughter, perfect student, great all-over person. And then there's Rory Gilmore, Logan Huntzberger's girlfriend. She knows it's wrong to let men dictate who she is, but she can't deny that there's something different about her when she's with him. Her more daring side, the real college girl in her comes out. This is a girl who has a different kind of ambition, a stronger sense of…well, herself. She is, for once, ready to take on anything and everything.

The Life of Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, the one she desires, is different but also not. Her wedding is spectacular, attended by everyone who's anyone in Hartford, and her honeymoon is miles away. Her life is no longer that of a small-town girl out in the real world, but a girl in the real world who just happens to come from a small town. Is there a difference? A miniscule one, most people would say, a minor detail. But to Rory, it's a huge distinction, an important one, a life-changing one.

And that's that.

"Yeah, I should," she says slowly, softly.

They stand almost in unison, and it strikes her as both very funny and very sad. They stand facing each other, and she dimly realizes that he is taller than Logan.

He leans down, and this time he kisses her. It's a simple kiss, a chaste one, just lips on lips. She kisses him back softly. Something inside her knows that she has to.

When he pulls back, he looks at her with something indescribable in his dark eyes. "See you 'round," he says on an exhale.

She smiles at him. "_Duck Soup_ some time?"

He shrugs noncommittally. "Let me know if you want a bartender at your wedding."

"Don't be an idiot," she says, alarmed. "You get a proper invitation."

"What, I don't get to mix a special drink for the occasion? The Rory Huntzberger?"

This is them acknowledging the truth. She is going to marry Logan. She knows it, deep down, but is too scared of jinxing it to actually allow herself to truly think it. He knows it, too, and this is his acceptance.

"You can mix the drink _and_ get a proper invitation. Best of both worlds."

"I'm a lucky guy," he says wryly, his tone suggesting that he knows that, at the moment, he is everything but.

She squeezes his hand and turns to walk away. Back to their apartment, back home, back to the life she knows is waiting for her. Her heels hit the ground sharply and distinctly. A girl in the real world who just happens to come from a small town. She loves her mother more than anything, and Stars Hollow will always be her home, but this is who she is now.

And she's pretty sure, as she wraps her coat tightly around herself, wonders how her grandfather is…that she likes it.


End file.
